When former Beverly Hills 90210 star AnnaLynne McCord accepted her award for her anti-human trafficking efforts at the Unlikely Heroes Award Gala in Hollywood over the weekend, there was someone missing by her side – actor boyfriend Dominic Purcell.

"My darling," McCord told PEOPLE at the event. "He's in Australia with his darlings. With the kids."

Although the couple have been a serious item since 2011, McCord admits she is in no rush to walk down the aisle.

"Everybody else is doing it. I got to go against the grain. So I'm holding off," she said.

Linda Gray is walking into the Mansion Restaurant in Dallas when a valet calls out her name, runs over and gives her a warm hug. In minutes, other staffers join in, laughing and chatting with the actress.

"I knew all these people," she explains, referencing her first stint of fame in these parts, when she originally played Sue Ellen Ewing on the 1978 CBS series Dallas, a role she's now reprising on the TNT reboot. "It's wonderful to see everyone again. I feel so lucky. I feel so blessed."

The feeling is mutual. It's been 35 years since Gray was introduced to the world as Sue Ellen, the alcoholic former wife of J.R. Ewing, made iconically dastardly by the late Larry Hagman. Returning to Dallas – both the city and the series – "is a gift," says Gray, 72. "What would be my dream? It would be this: getting to spend the last days of Larry's life with him, working."

The late Larry Hagman will not be forgotten when Dallas returns to television on Jan. 28.

Hagman, who shot to fame as the show's star patriarch oil baron, J.R. Ewing, will be honored in upcoming episodes this season, including a funeral, set for the series' March 11 episode, EW.comreports.

The actor passed away on Nov. 23 at 81 from cancer, forcing the show's producers to make significant changes to the storyline, even as they mourned the show's longtime villain who was also a great friend. Extra scenes with J.R. that had previously been cut were put back in for episode 6, said executive producer Cynthia Cidre, who had to explain to viewers as she wrote future episodes why the key character was absent.

"Friday, I lost one of the greatest friends ever to grace my life. The loneliness is only what is difficult as Larry's peace and comfort is always what is important to me, now as when he was here," Duffy said in a statement. "He was a fighter in the gentlest way, against his obstacles and for his friends. I wear his friendship with honor."

Linda Gray is expressing her sadness over the loss of her Dallas costar Larry Hagman, who died Friday after battling throat cancer.

"Larry Hagman was my best friend for 35 years. He was the Pied Piper of life and brought joy to everyone he knew," Gray said in a statement released to PEOPLE Saturday. "He was creative, generous, funny, loving and talented and I will miss him enormously. He was an original and lived life to the fullest. The world was a brighter place because of Larry."

The actress, 72, played Sue Ellen Ewing, the wife of Hagman's notorious oilman J.R. Ewing, on Dallas beginning in 1978. She also appeared in the TNT reboot.